Natural dunes are a powerful tool for coastal resilience – offering the ability to absorb wave energy, reduce flooding and prevent erosion. However, coastal engineers need more knowledge about their unique dynamics to fully harness their potential.
To boost this understanding, an ERDC team relocated a live dune segment from a Florida beach to a Mississippi laboratory as part of an innovative effort to study the ecological drivers of dune stability.
We talk with Leigh Langley, a research coastal engineer at ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, about how she and her team were able to transport a dune to the laboratory and how the lessons they learned will improve the nation’s coastal management practices.
Topics include why dunes matter and why we need to study them (1:44), how this experiment builds off a study ERDC conducted a decade ago (2:27), and why it was important to study the dune in a laboratory setting (5:29). We also talk about the process of extracting the dune (9:51), the experiments that were conducted (20:29), and the larger effort to study the ecological drivers of dune stability (22:00).
For more information, visit PowerofERDCPodcast.org/79-dune-extraction_resources. Listen to the audio version of this episode at PowerofERDCPodcast.org/79-dune-extraction.
